第26章 ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND,CALLED RUFUS(3)

After three years of great hardship and suffering-from shipwreck at sea;from travel in strange lands;from hunger,thirst,and fever,upon the burning sands of the desert;and from the fury of the Turks-the valiant Crusaders got possession of Our Saviour's tomb.The Turks were still resisting and fighting bravely,but this success increased the general desire in Europe to join the Crusade.Another great French Duke was proposing to sell his dominions for a term to the rich Red King,when the Red King's reign came to a sudden and violent end.

You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Conqueror made,and which the miserable people whose homes he had laid waste,so hated.

The cruelty of the Forest Laws,and the torture and death they brought upon the peasantry,increased this hatred.The poor persecuted country people believed that the New Forest was enchanted.They said that in thunder-storms,and on dark nights,demons appeared,moving beneath the branches of the gloomy trees.

They said that a terrible spectre had foretold to Norman hunters that the Red King should be punished there.And now,in the pleasant season of May,when the Red King had reigned almost thirteen years;and a second Prince of the Conqueror's blood-another Richard,the son of Duke Robert-was killed by an arrow in this dreaded Forest;the people said that the second time was not the last,and that there was another death to come.

It was a lonely forest,accursed in the people's hearts for the wicked deeds that had been done to make it;and no man save the King and his Courtiers and Huntsmen,liked to stray there.But,in reality,it was like any other forest.In the spring,the green leaves broke out of the buds;in the summer,flourished heartily,and made deep shades;in the winter,shrivelled and blew down,and lay in brown heaps on the moss.Some trees were stately,and grew high and strong;some had fallen of themselves;some were felled by the forester's axe;some were hollow,and the rabbits burrowed at their roots;some few were struck by lightning,and stood white and bare.There were hill-sides covered with rich fern,on which the morning dew so beautifully sparkled;there were brooks,where the deer went down to drink,or over which the whole herd bounded,flying from the arrows of the huntsmen;there were sunny glades,and solemn places where but little light came through the rustling leaves.The songs of the birds in the New Forest were pleasanter to hear than the shouts of fighting men outside;and even when the Red King and his Court came hunting through its solitudes,cursing loud and riding hard,with a jingling of stirrups and bridles and knives and daggers,they did much less harm there than among the English or Normans,and the stags died (as they lived)far easier than the people.

Upon a day in August,the Red King,now reconciled to his brother,Fine-Scholar,came with a great train to hunt in the New Forest.

Fine-Scholar was of the party.They were a merry party,and had lain all night at Malwood-Keep,a hunting-lodge in the forest,where they had made good cheer,both at supper and breakfast,and had drunk a deal of wine.The party dispersed in various directions,as the custom of hunters then was.The King took with him only SIR WALTER TYRREL,who was a famous sportsman,and to whom he had given,before they mounted horse that morning,two fine arrows.

The last time the King was ever seen alive,he was riding with Sir Walter Tyrrel,and their dogs were hunting together.

It was almost night,when a poor charcoal-burner,passing through the forest with his cart,came upon the solitary body of a dead man,shot with an arrow in the breast,and still bleeding.He got it into his cart.It was the body of the King.Shaken and tumbled,with its red beard all whitened with lime and clotted with blood,it was driven in the cart by the charcoal-burner next day to Winchester Cathedral,where it was received and buried.

Sir Walter Tyrrel,who escaped to Normandy,and claimed the protection of the King of France,swore in France that the Red King was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an unseen hand,while they were hunting together;that he was fearful of being suspected as the King's murderer;and that he instantly set spurs to his horse,and fled to the sea-shore.Others declared that the King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were hunting in company,a little before sunset,standing in bushes opposite one another,when a stag came between them.That the King drew his bow and took aim,but the string broke.That the King then cried,'Shoot,Walter,in the Devil's name!'That Sir Walter shot.That the arrow glanced against a tree,was turned aside from the stag,and struck the King from his horse,dead.

By whose hand the Red King really fell,and whether that hand despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by design,is only known to GOD.Some think his brother may have caused him to be killed;but the Red King had made so many enemies,both among priests and people,that suspicion may reasonably rest upon a less unnatural murderer.Men know no more than that he was found dead in the New Forest,which the suffering people had regarded as a doomed ground for his race.